Baked Goods
by AHigherOctave
Summary: AU. Five unlikely times that a muffin brought the gold star and the head cheerleader together.


**Title:** Baked Goods  
**Rating: **PG-13/T.**  
Words:** 1,826  
**Fandom:** Glee  
**Summary:** Five unlikely times that a muffin brought the gold star and the head cheerleader together.  
**Characters:** Rachel, Quinn, some Puck, Mercedes, Tina, and Artie, mentions of Will and Finn.  
**Notes:** For obsestress who wanted Rachel/Quinn and bluffin' muffins or buttered muffins or just about any kind of muffin there is out there. Slight spoilers for Hello.

She's just putting her breakfast on the table in late December, right after most kids her age have just finished unwrapping their Christmas presents, when she hears a knock on the door. Immediately, a little voice inside her suggests that it might be Finn coming to give her a gift. Another little voice, the cynical realistic one, tells her that's insane and that her Dads probably just ordered Chinese food like normal Jewish people do on the day of Jesus' birth.

Still, she checks her reflection in the mirror before practically skipping over to the door. She throws it open, with a big award-winning smile and shouts, "Merry Christmas!" And then looks long enough to realize that the blond girl with the rounding tummy in front of her doesn't look very merry at all.

"I brought mini-muffins," Quinn mutters, holding up a basket in her hand and staring at some spot behind Rachel's head. Her pretty hazel eyes look distant and tired, not perfectly coiffed with mascara like usual. She's not wearing her usual baby doll dress either. Instead, she stands there in what looks like an old McKinley High football sweatshirt of Puck's and a pair of jeans that seem entirely too tight.

Rachel bites her lip and gestures for her to come in. _This is not the kind of time you questions people_, she tells herself, _this is the kind of time you could actually end up making a real friend_. So she puts aside her ill feelings over Finn and sits down at her table.

* * *

When she comes out onto the bleachers, she doesn't immediately see Rachel. Instead she glances around for a minute before her eyes settle on a ball of pink fluff in the very top corner. She can practically taste the sadness mixed with humidity as she makes her way to the top. "Hi." She sits there and waits.

"Go away." Rachel's voice is weak and little for the first time. It's a little startling, so startling that she accidentally offers something of herself up.

"I thought the world would end when Finn broke up with me too," She stares at her hands as she speaks. She isn't good with opening up, but it's even harder to watch someone's expectant face as she does it. "I'd already lost my parents, and I was scared and alone and pregnant. It doesn't, it keeps moving. You find out other people are there. They might…" She pauses for a second, her own breath catching in her throat. She swallows again and looks at the football goal. "They definitely won't be the ones you wanted, but sometimes what you want and what you need are totally different. You know that."

Rachel considers this for a moment. She thinks about her childhood and her dads and Finn and her desperate longing for real friends that don't just tolerate her for her voice. She doesn't know, not at all. "You didn't want Puck." She didn't realize it, not when she blew her secret. She just told Finn, for her own selfish reasons. And they were stuck back where they had been months ago. Neither of them had him.

"No." Quinn shakes her blond hair, and it falls over her shoulder. She really is prettier than Rachel in every way, fairer, taller, leaner, better eyelashes. She breathes in a sign of relief, and this goddess, Finn doesn't want her either. He wants Quinn even less than he wants her, Rachel Berry, social outcast. This helps brighten her mood.

"You want to get a cup of coffee?" Rachel watches as Quinn spreads her out fingers over her belly, the red material of her sweater peaking through the gaps in between.

"I can't," She says, staring down at her full stomach before catching herself and looking up at the brunette girl. "I'll let you buy me a muffin though."

* * *

They're sitting on Rachel's bed with a variety of baby books, magazines, and pamphlets (supplied by none other then Emma Pillsbury). Rachel is pouring over What to Expect When You're Expecting in awe. Having two gay dads, she somewhat missed out on an explanation of the joys of motherhood. She's never really considered children as part of the same dream package that provided her with the Grammy's, Broadway, and Finn Hudson but now she can't help but wonder…

A little girl she can teach how to sing. It sounds wonderful, just like her, with a softer, more childlike lull to the voice.

Quinn who's picking the crumbs off a blueberry muffin wrapper (hey, she's eating for two) watches her go off into fantasyland in annoyance. She's supposed to be helping her compile a pro/con list on keeping it, not incorporating her daughter into her latest dream sequence. "Week nineteen," She tells Rachel flippantly, snapping her out of her reverie.

She blinks her brown eyes several times in confusion, "Huh?" She asks complacently.

"I'm on week nineteen, what does it say?" She nods toward the book in her frie…Rachel's lap.

Rachel looks down at the text next to the picture of the uterus in front of her. "Uh, leg cramps." Quinn looks down at her legs and juts out her bottom lip in a pout, as if to tell her she'd already noticed this. The brown-haired girl buries her nose in the book again and comes back up smiling, "Kicking!" She squeals, staring at the blonde's ever expanding stomach. "It's going to kick soon!"

Quinn looks at the book and then back at her belly, and before she knows it, the both of them are sitting in the middle of the bed excitedly, both hands on the bump expectantly. "It hasn't done it yet," She breathes in awe. "Do you think I should call Puck so that he can be here?"

Rachel shakes her head, still staring down, "He'll get it the next time, I mean, assuming it were to kick now. Which is extremely unlikely, I'm sure but…wouldn't it be amazing?"

Their eyes meet and they both blush in embarrassment at their presumption. Still, neither one moves until almost an hour later when it even then Quinn's womb has failed to show any signs of activity.

* * *

Glee is out to dinner. Fresh off a successful rehearsal, Will offers to treat them all to pizza. It's something he never would have done when he was married, but he's happier, mellower than he used to be. The world is a bright and shiny place for him now. Rachel thinks he deserves it.

She sits at a table with Tina, Artie, Kurt, Puck, and Quinn. The baby is kicking now, and Puck refuses to take his hands off his baby mama's belly. Rachel hasn't even got a turn yet. There are about sixteen weeks left. Sixteen years in Quinn's life so far. It doesn't seem like enough time for her to make a decision.

So when Kurt brings up baby names, Rachel makes a lot of throat cutting gestures behind Quinn's back. He either doesn't get the hint, or he ignores it. "You should name her Chanel," He smiles wistfully, as if he is dreaming of naming his own child this. Rachel finds it slightly disturbing.

Apparently so does Puck, "No daughter of mine is going to be named after a fashion designer," He snorts, looking to Quinn for approval. She doesn't say anything. She's struggling between agreeing and saying they aren't naming the baby anything at all. Not even Drizzle.

"Oh, what about Violet?" Tina smiles.

"Please girl," Mercedes snorts, resting a hand on her friend's purple-and-black striped shirt. "No one in their right mind is going to name their kid after a color."

Tina's confidence vanishes, and Quinn watches as she practically melts away into the red leather booth. "I like it," Artie states indignantly from where his wheelchair is parked at the end of the table. "And it's a lot better than naming your kid after some stupid car." Mercedes flashes red, and Rachel thinks that for once Artie might be the one getting smacked down with the hand of god.

So she interjects, "Well, friends, I happen to like Muffin." She smiles brightly at Quinn, who gives her a small grin in return.

Puck looks at her like she's crazy, "Man, you and Finn are really made for each other, huh?"

* * *

Quinn is hooked up to a hospital monitor alone in her room. She doesn't know what to feel. All the emotions she knows are wrong for this moment. She can't be happy. She can't be sad. She can't even be angry. Who is there left to be angry at? Herself? She's done that already. So she sits there, staring at the chart next to the bed telling her she has the right to a translator if she so needs it, trying to make her mind form coherent thoughts.

Only one is coming up though, the baby is gone. Her little girl is gone. There's a hole in her world, but she knows she's done something right. How can that be?

There's a light knock on the door and she sees a timid Rachel standing in the doorway, "I come bearing gifts," She holds up a muffin basket and a thermos. "They're blueberry, just like you like." She sets the thermos down, "It's hot chocolate. I didn't know if… I mean I wasn't sure what… I, uh-"

"She's gone," Quinn tells her. It's the only thing she can offer up right now. It's the only thing she knows: She is Quinn Fabray, daughter of Russell and Judy Fabray, devout Christian, she's head cheerleader, she's the ex-girlfriend of Finn Hudson the Quarterback, she had sex with Noah Puckerman when she might have been drunk on wine coolers, yesterday she was 41 weeks pregnant with his daughter, and now she isn't anymore.

She covers her mouth with her hand and then bites it. She should feel something, anything.

"Where's Noah?" Noah Puckerman, seventeen, Mohawk, yesterday he had a daughter. Today he doesn't.

"He went home." Rachel nods at this, as if accepting that he really is a Lima loser after all. "I told him to," She elaborates. "I couldn't deal with him staring at me like that all day." Usually she likes it, it makes her feel like maybe she might have something worthwhile about her other than her physical attributes and her perfectly executed back flips.

"Are you okay?" Quinn counts the number of blueberries visible on one of the muffins. Evens she's fine, odds she's not. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7…

"No," She cheated, stopped counting after the lucky number.

"I'm here," She takes her hand. Quinn looks at her. Rachel Berry: brown hair, brown eyes, Glee club co-captain, hopelessly in love with Finn Hudson, two gay dads, spoiled, her best friend.

She lets herself think enough to close her eyes, just for a few minutes.


End file.
